“I don’t know. I’m having problems with what you’re telling me.”
“Of course. It’s a bit incredible to me also.”
“But how do you explain that?”
Dr. Luria’s face looked like a polished apple for the excitement she was trying to contain. “That’s also what we’re trying to determine and the reason why we’d like to run another test on you, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“You want to put me under again?”
“At another time. You need to rest up and let the sedative leave your system. We also need time to analyze all the data. But, if you’re willing to have another session, we’ll pay you another seven hundred and fifty dollars.”
The group looked at him with faces full of expectation. He felt his Armenian merchant gene kick in. “How about a bonus for good behavior?”
Luria smiled. “Would eight hundred make you feel better?”
“Not as much as a thousand.” He held his breath as Dr. Luria thought that over.
“You drive a hard bargain,” Luria said. “Okay, one thousand. And we’ll come up with a mutually convenient date.”
Then Luria took Zack’s arm. “Zack, I want to remind you that nothing that occurred here tonight can be shared with anybody else. This is all still very confidential.”
“Of course,” Zack said, wondering how and when they’d reveal their findings. “How exactly are out-of-the- body experiences related to near-death experiences?”
“More than fifty percent of those having NDEs claim to have out-of-the-body experiences. They’re part of the same phenomenon.”
“What if it happens the next time?”
“Then it would all but eliminate coincidence,” she said, “and would confirm that you acquired information while in suspension—that your unconscious mind left your body.”
Zack made a move to follow Sarah to the exit. But Luria stopped him. “Zack, you may be interested in knowing that the heightened neuroactivity we recorded is located in the very sector associated with religious and spiritual experiences. It’s known as the ‘God lobe.’”
“The God lobe? But I’m not even religious.”
“And that’s what’s so interesting.”
Zack gathered his things. Then Sarah walked him to the door. “How are you doing?” Her eyes glowed warmly, and he liked the feel of her hand guiding him to the door. He was still a little shaky on his feet.
“A bit dazzled.”
“Of course. It is very exciting,” she said. “Oh,” she added, and handed him a check.
He slipped that into his pocket and followed Bruce to the car. The chauffeur got into the driver’s seat and closed the door. Before Zack got in, he turned to Sarah. “When you’re not looking for the afterlife, do you ever go out for beer and pizza?”
“Are you inviting me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d be happy to.”
“How about Friday night?”
“Sounds fine.”
He got in the car. If this was his postcoma afterlife, he was beginning to enjoy it.
37
Roman entered La Dolce Vita restaurant feeling a little giddy. From what he surmised, Cola, Pomeroy, and company were conducting experiments that would have gotten them burned at the stake a few centuries back. Today, they hired Roman.
He ordered a seafood risotto and a glass of Chianti. His next assignment was a Roger Devereux, a research neuroscientist from Boston University School of Medicine. According to his scant information, the man was also a regular at this restaurant, coming in a couple of Monday evenings each month. He usually showed up for a seven o’clock reservation, window seat. It was six forty-five, and Roman had a table at the rear of the main room with a view of the empty reserved table by the window.
Through the windows, his eyes fell on a large Gothic church in red brick across the avenue. What a difference from the squat yellow brick structure of St. Luke’s on a side street off of Franklin Avenue in Hartford. He still remembered Father Infantino’s hellfire sermons about what would happen to sinners when they died—resurrected in body and mind and dumped into hell to suffer hideous punishment forever without the relief of death. The good father had claimed that there was a punishment tailor-made for every kind of sinner. Those who blasphemed God would be hanged by their tongues. Adulterers would have liquid iron poured on their genitals. Liars would be forced to chew their tongues while vultures pecked out their eyes. Women who had abortions would be made to wallow in excrement up to their chins. Murderers would be cast into pits of poisonous snakes. Those who turned their backs on God would be impaled on spits and roasted over blazing fires. And these torments would go on for eternity.
“And how long is eternity?” Father Infantino would howl. “Imagine a mountain thirty thousand feet high and that every ten thousand years a giant bird would fly to the top and rub its beak but once on the rocky peak. How long would it take before that wore the mountain to its base? Not a billionth of the time you’d burn in hell. And the awful magic of hell was that you wouldn’t die. You wouldn’t burn up—just suffer forever and ever, torment without end.”
Even as a boy, Roman didn’t understand how anyone could believe in a God who’d torture His disobedient children for all eternity. Wasn’t God supposed to be good and loving and all-forgiving? Or was He such a raging sadist? If so, it was hard not to question His moral integrity. Also, how did Father Infantino know that hell was like this? Was that stuff really in the Bible? And wasn’t the Bible written by a bunch of old guys thousands of years ago? Even if hell was really like that, why bother? Why not wipe out all of it? Blotto. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. No second chance, no hellfire. Hell was just not going to heaven where the good guys went.
Some years later, Roman would tell himself that Father Infantino’s rants were the product of a sexually frustrated middle-aged guy who couldn’t find a real job and who got off scaring the shit out of little kids. Probably diddled a few behind the altar.
But over the last few weeks, Roman began reexamining the possibilities beneath all the thunder. And what he had concluded was that there was a God after all. He wasn’t sure that heaven was a city of gold and precious stones, or if God sat in a throne of light, or that you got to hang out with your dead relatives, saints, and Jesus himself for eternity. But he had come to believe that life did go on. And for some reason, these doctors were in league with Satan. So what did he have to lose by knocking them off? Nothing. And maybe an eternity to gain.
A little before seven, in walked a guy who matched the cell phone photo of Roger Devereux. He looked less like a professor of neurology at BU and more like someone behind the counter at Ace Hardware. He was short, chubby, and bald and was stuffed into a too tight blue blazer and blue shirt. He entered alone and was led to a window table. After maybe ten minutes, a woman appeared in the entrance and joined him. Devereux’s wife, a former lab associate.
Roman had taken a table where he could not be seen by the Devereux, nor near the restrooms should either need one. He ate slowly and had a second cup of decaf while the couple finished their meal and left. Roman paid the check and followed the Devereux, who lived in a high-rise condo complex a few blocks from the restaurant. He kept his distance and waited for them to take the elevator to the fourteenth floor. Then fifteen minutes later, he rang the intercom for 1404. A male voice answered. “Dr. Devereux?”
“Yes.”
“My name is John Farley. I’m from the Boston office of the FBI, and I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“FBI? What’s this all about?”
“Well, I’d rather explain in person. If you’d like, we could talk down here or go someplace else, or I could come up.”
“I’ll be right down.”
